TEACHERS JUDGMENTS OF STUDENTS ACADEMIC FUNCTIONING - A COMPARISON OFACTUAL AND PREDICTED PERFORMANCES

The relationship between teachers' judgments of students' academic ach ievement and students' performances on an achievement test was investi gated. The major questions examined were: fa) How accurate are teacher s' ratings of students' academic achievement? (b) What is the relation ship between teachers' judgments, as operationalized by item predictio ns on a standardized achievement test, and students' actual performanc es on an achievement test? (c) Does a student's educational status, hi gh-achieving versus low-achieving, affect the accuracy of teachers' ju dgments? The study included 12 teachers who volunteered to participate , and 47 students randomly selected from Wisconsin public schools. The students consisted of 30 females and 17 males, ranging from first-to fourth-grade levels. Teachers filled out the Academic Competence Scale from the Social Skills Rating System-Teacher version (Gresham & Ellio tt, 1990) and one questionnaire for each student. The questionnaire, d eveloped by the authors of the: current study, required teachers to pr edict how students would do on each item of the Kaufman Test of Educat ional Achievement, Brief form (K-TEA; Kaufman & Kaufman, 1985). Studen ts were then administered the K-TEA by a qualified examiner. Teachers' judgments of students' academic achievement on the Academic Competenc e Scale were correlated moderately high (r = .70) with students' actua l K-TEA scores. Furthermore, mean percent agreement between teachers' item predictions and students' actual performances on the K-TEA was mo derately high (79%) (Kappa-coefficient of 67%). Lastly, there was part ial support for the prediction that teachers were better predictors of higher-achieving than lower-achieving students. Analyses demonstrated a slightly higher percent agreement between teachers and students wit h above-average K-TEA scores (81%) than between teachers and students with below-average K-TEA scores (77%). This article concludes with a d iscussion of the practical implications of these findings for psycholo gists conducting academic assessments.